


Only a Bit of Pain

by Gwyn_Paige



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week, The Magnus Archives Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26153326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwyn_Paige/pseuds/Gwyn_Paige
Summary: As the Archives burned around them, Martin did his best to soothe Jon's pain.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 190





	Only a Bit of Pain

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the TMA Hurt/Comfort week event over on Tumblr, with the prompt "Hiding pain."
> 
> Content warnings for, well, a character being in pain, and mentions of burning, though there are no actual injuries.

Martin was only dimly surprised to find that, even after the end of the world, the Archives still existed in some form. They were curled beneath the Panopticon like rotten roots, stretching out for what seemed like miles, and they barely resembled the cramped, familiar office basement they had once been. Alongside the Panopticon’s ascension, the Archives had been twisted into labyrinthine hallways filled with seemingly endless stacks of papers and tapes and books, looming and nightmarish. Despite all of this, as Jon had told Martin before they began their descent into the twisting corridors, they were still the Archives.

And now they were burning.

The dozens of boxes of matches Martin had packed on a hopeful whim were finally being put to good use. As the two of them made their way through the tunnels, Martin set shelves alight, the yellowed paper catching fire almost too easily, spreading quickly to the surrounding shelves. Jon stayed a few steps ahead, guiding them through the twisting maze, ensuring they stayed ahead of the spreading flame and that they didn’t hit any dead ends.

Following Jon’s directions and avoiding getting burned himself was enough to distract Martin for a time, but it wasn’t long before he began to notice that something wasn’t right with Jon. Though he seemed confident as ever, rattling off directions almost without hesitation, Martin could hear an uncomfortable strain in his voice.

“We’ll have to go left up ahead,” Jon said as they approached an intersection of hallways, and all at once Martin realized that he sounded like he was in pain, and doing his best to pretend that he wasn’t. Now that Martin was paying attention, he could see that Jon’s breath was coming in labored bursts, and he was hunched over slightly, as though making an effort to keep standing upright.

“Wait,” Martin said, rushing to meet him at the center of the intersection. He put a hand on Jon’s arm, to steady him as much as stop him.

Jon did stop, and instinctively put his hand over Martin’s own. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?” He gave Martin a once-over, as though checking for injuries.

“I’m fine,” Martin said, brushing Jon’s hand away gently. “You’re clearly not, though.” Jon was pale and sweating, and Martin was sure it wasn’t from the heat. Holding his arm, he could see and feel Jon shaking slightly, in tiny spasms, all over, especially in his hands.

More damning than that, though, was the expression Jon made at Martin’s words; he’d never had an amazing poker face. “It’s nothing,” Jon said, looking incredibly guilty, his voice still strained. He tried, ineffectively, to tug himself out of Martin’s grip. “Don’t worry about me. We should keep moving.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Martin, guiding Jon over to the mouth of an adjacent hallway and sitting him down, gently, against an overstuffed filing cabinet. “You’re not using that excuse. The fire’s well behind us, we can stop and rest for a bit.”

“I’m _fine_ , Martin,” Jon said, but he wasn’t acting like it. As soon as Martin joined him on the concrete floor, Jon seemed to deflate, leaning against Martin exhaustedly, and his shaking got worse, his hands trembling in seemingly uncontrollable spasms.

Martin’s heart leapt into his throat. He took one of Jon’s shaking hands in his own, trying to steady him. “Tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”

“I _said_ —”

“Don’t lie to me, Jon,” Martin said softly.

Jon’s eyes widened in realization, and he nodded apologetically. His gaze wandered to a spot on the floor, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “I—I’m sorry.” His voice was much weaker than it had been a moment ago, reedy and thin, and he spoke slowly. “I should’ve told you earlier, but I didn’t want you to have any . . . reservations. About what we had to do here. It’s the—the burning. I’m connected to the Archives, and everything in them, and burning all of it . . . it affects me, as well.”

Martin felt his stomach grow cold. He’d burned dozens, maybe hundreds of stacks of papers by now. He clutched Jon’s hand tighter. “How . . . how does it— _affect_ you?”

Jon shook his head, dismissing the thought Martin couldn’t say aloud. “It’s not . . . _killing_ me. I’d . . .” Jon let out a humorless laugh, then winced in pain. “Well, I was about to say I wouldn’t have suggested it if that was the case, but I . . . honestly don’t know if that’s true.”

Martin wanted to shout at him for saying something like that, but instead he sighed and put a steadying hand on Jon’s cheek. _“Jon,”_ he said. A reminder.

“Right. Right,” Jon murmured, leaning into Martin’s touch. “I’m sorry. I . . . I wouldn’t have just gone off and done something . . . like that, not without telling you. But as it is . . .” Jon shuddered as another spasm of pain went through him. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure. “As it is, it just . . . it just burns.”

An image of the inferno a few hallways behind them flashed in Martin’s head, and dread crawled up his throat like bile. “You’re just—you’re _burning_?” Martin ran his hands over Jon’s arms and sides, desperately trying to find a wound, a blister, something he could soothe, but Jon’s skin wasn’t even warm. “Is it—Jon, _where_ is it burning you?”

It was then that Jon did something truly horrible: he lifted his head and smiled at Martin. It was the saddest, most resigned smile Martin had ever seen cross anyone’s face. “Everywhere,” Jon said, and it sounded like the closing of a book.

On instinct, Martin jerked his hands away, as though touching Jon might hurt him more. He felt sick. He felt cold. He wanted to run, or scream, or hide Jon under a blanket and never let anything so much as look at him ever again. He wanted to cry, from exhaustion if nothing else.

Jon chased Martin’s hands, taking them shakily and pulling them back, and Martin let him, numbly staring into Jon’s tired eyes, slightly sunken into his pallid face. It struck Martin that Jon looked utterly wrecked, and probably had been for a while now. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed sooner.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Jon said, and he nodded at his right hand, the one covered in old burns. “I’ve had worse.”

A spark of hot anger flared in Martin’s chest. “Don’t _say_ that.” Martin squeezed Jon’s hands as tightly as he dared. “You’re—for god’s sake, Jon, you’re in pain, you’re _burning alive_ —”

But Jon was shaking his head, infuriatingly calm despite his labored breathing. “It’s—it isn’t that bad, really, it’s . . . it hurts, but it’s not _hurting_ me, you see? It’s only . . . only a bit of pain. I can keep going.”

“No,” said Martin. “No, that’s . . . I can’t—I won’t let you.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t, Jon.” Martin heard his own voice quiver, as though on the verge of tears, and was only dimly surprised to find that he didn’t give a shit. “Don’t. I—you’re fucking _burning_ and I was the one who set the fires. _I_ did this to you. I can’t—I can’t. Jon, I can’t, not if it’s—”

“Martin.” For a moment, Jon’s voice snapped back to the way it used to be, stern and no-nonsense. It grew gentle again as he went on, like a salve applied to a wound: “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this. Setting the fires was my plan, and . . . it’s the only way, Martin, I—if there was some other way, I’d take it. But . . . this needs to be done. And I—I can’t do it alone.”

Jon was running a thumb over the knuckles of Martin’s right hand, as though Martin was the one needing comforting. “I . . . I’m sorry you got dragged into all of this,” Jon said softly. “It isn’t—” But he cut himself off with a small cry of pain, biting it back a moment too late.

“God, Jon,” Martin murmured, almost to himself. He sat back against the cabinet, putting his arm around Jon’s shoulders, and immediately felt Jon’s weight fall against his side. His chest hurt with a useless kind of worry. “Is there _anything_ I can do.” It felt more like an admission of defeat than a question.

“This is . . . this is good, actually.” Jon’s head rested against his shoulder, one of his hands still clasped in Martin’s. Beneath a furrowed brow, his eyes were closed. “You holding me. It . . . makes the pain less . . . sharp.”

Martin let out a breath. “Okay. Good. That’s . . . I can do that.” They sat like that for a moment or two, Jon’s strained breathing loud in Martin’s ears, the distant crackling of flames a reminder that they couldn’t rest for long. Martin brought up a hand to Jon’s hair, now unkempt from their journey, but still soft. As he combed a hand through it, fingers brushing at Jon’s scalp, Jon let out a sigh and burrowed against his shoulder.

“Here,” Martin said, as a thought occurred to him. “This might hurt for just a second, but—” Gently as he could, Martin pulled Jon’s legs across his own, so he was sitting sideways in Martin’s lap. Jon’s breath hitched with pain, but he went more than willingly, wrapping his arms around Martin’s neck, as he had back in the safehouse whenever they crammed themselves together in the cabin’s single armchair.

“Better?” said Martin.

“Yes,” Jon said at once, relief palpable in his voice. “Yes, much better.”

Every breath Jon took seemed to come easier, now, and the tight worry in Martin’s chest was slowly abating. Still, he wound his arms around Jon protectively, holding him as close as he could.

“Thank you, Martin,” said Jon. His voice came softly from where his head rested against Martin’s left temple. “I—I couldn’t do this without you.”

“Yeah,” said Martin, playing absentmindedly with a strand of Jon’s hair. “Yeah, I know. _Not anymore_ , wasn’t that what you said? After the Lonely?”

“I meant it,” Jon murmured. “We won’t be alone again. Either of us.”

Martin huffed a humorless laugh. “You know, I almost believe you.”

“You should,” said Jon teasingly, and just for a moment he sounded like himself again. “Omniscient, remember?”

Martin let out a sigh. “I know that isn’t how it works, Jon. You said it yourself, you can’t see the future.”

“No. No, you’re right. I can’t.” Jon’s body trembled again for a moment, less severely than before. When it was over, he let out a breath. “I don’t _Know_ what’s going to happen. But I . . . I’m not going to leave you again. I know that. In a fallible, human way, I know that.”

Martin didn’t feel any relief at those words. It was hard to be relieved in that moment, deep in the caverns of an Archive of human fear, at the end of the world. But some of the despair that clutched at his chest went away as he buried his face in Jon’s hair and murmured, “I’m not going to leave you, either, you know.”

“Yes,” Jon said after a moment, and Martin could hear the smile in his voice. “Yes, I know that too.”

“And I didn’t get dragged into this. I chose it. I chose to go into it. With you.” Martin sniffed. “I’d choose it again.”

“Martin.” Jon’s voice was quiet and thin, but there was all the love in the world in that word.

There was silence between them for a few moments. Martin knew, in the back of his mind, that they’d have to move on soon, and more fires would need to be lit, but for now, Jon was in his arms, and breathing, and that was enough.

After some time, it no longer mattered how long, Jon stirred in his arms. His voice came a little stronger than before: “The pain . . . isn’t as bad, now. I think . . . some of the fires must’ve burned themselves out. We should get moving.”

But Martin didn’t let go of Jon, and Jon didn’t try to pull away. “In a minute,” said Martin. He closed his eyes against the comforting darkness of Jon’s hair. “Just . . . just another minute.”

Jon’s hand, trembling almost imperceptibly now, curled gently against the back of Martin’s head. “Alright,” said Jon. “Alright.”

He knew he was only delaying the inevitable. Still, Martin willfully turned his thoughts away from the immediate future, away from the heat of burning paper and wood, from Jon’s pained cries that would come in response, like thunder following lightning. Instead he thought of what would come after, once the Panopticon had fallen, once the fears had been banished from the world and everything had gone back to the way it should be. He thought of what Jon’s relieved smile would look like, exhausted but joyful, and how his arms would feel around Martin as they embraced. How sweet his kisses would taste, there in the light of a new dawn, as clocks finally began to tick again and people all over the world began to blink awake from what would, in the end, amount to nothing more than a nightmare.

And then, with a stubborn single-mindedness that he felt he’d bloody well earned, Martin thought only of the present, of the weight of Jon in his arms, of the feeling of Jon’s lips pressing shakily against his temple. Of the sound Jon made as he sighed, a small, precious exhalation of whatever amount of happiness he had left to spare, when Martin whispered into his ear to tell him that he loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
